Aleksandr Petrakov

AleksandrVasilyevich Petrakov - Ukrainian footballer and coach, from August 18, 2021 appointed interim head coach of the Ukraine national team.

Brief Biography

Aleksandr Petrakov was born on August 6, 1957 in Kiev.

Petrakov is a pupil of the soccer school "Dynamo" Kiev, but at the professional level played only for teams from the lower soccer leagues of Ukraine. Petrakov's career as a defender lasted only eight years: from 1976 to 1984 he defended the colors of such clubs as Lokomotiv (Vinnitsa), SKA (Kyiv), Dnipro (Cherkassy), Avangard (Rivne) and Kolos (Nikopol).

As a player he was silver medalist of the USSR Championship in 1979 with SKA (Kyiv) and twice bronze medalist of the USSR Championship in 1978 with SKA (Kyiv) and in 1981 with "Avangard" (Rivne).

He began his coaching career in 1993, joining the coaching staff of "Torpedo" (Zaporizhzhia). Subsequently, he worked on the coaching staff, as well as he led the team CSKA-2 (Kyiv), "Spartak" (Sumy) and "Vinnitsa.

Since 2001 he returned to Dynamo Kyiv where he worked as a coach of children's and youth sports school. Subsequently he worked with youth at the Republican High School of Physical Education (now it is Olympic College named after Poddubnyy).

Since 2011, he began working with youth teams of Ukraine national soccer team. Together with his charges reached the 1/8 finals of the World Youth Championship in 2015, as well as took 5th place at the European Youth Championship in 2014 and 3-4 place in 2018.

Petrakov's highest achievement, however, was winning the 2019 World Youth Championship.

Appointment as head coach of the Ukrainian national team

In August 2021 Petrakov was appointed interim head coach of the Ukrainian national soccer team, after the Ukrainian Football Association was unable to agree on a contract extension with Andriy Shevchenko.

The main candidate for this position was Sergei Rebrov, who now coaches the Emirati soccer club Al-Ain, but he failed to negotiate an early termination of his contract with the club.